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Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003 (The)
R1 - America - New Line Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (16th April 2004). |
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The Film
 First of all I am a huge honking Texas Chainsaw fan, the original Tobe Hooper masterpiece. The film came out way back in 1974 I wasn't even born yet and became an underground classic and one of the most successful indy films of all time. Fast forward to 1991 I'm 12 years old and for the first time I'm watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for the next 83 minutes I was frightened to my very core, freaked out by the crazy hitchhiker, grossed out by the twisted family, and by the end my heart was racing. Let's face it for a 12 year old this film is brutal and I never forgot that final image of Leather Face swinging his chainsaw in the air as the sun is setting and as Sally (Marilyn Burns) gets away from the terror she had faced. Iconic, cult, masterpiece, bone-chilling and many words like these best describe the original. Then in late 2002 I heard they where re-making this film, and by "they" I mean those heartless, money grubbing corperate faceless suits that run Hollywood and to make matters worse Michael Bay was going to produce it and some unkown music video director (Marcus Nispel) was taking charge of the production, four words instantaniously popped into my mind: This will be s**t. I won't go into any shot for shot description of the film, there's no point in describing it other than the synopisis posted up at http://www.imdb.com which reads: Driving through the backwoods of Texas, five youths pick up a traumatized hitchhiker, who shoots herself in their van. Shaken by the suicide, the group seeks help from the locals, but their situation becomes even more surreal when they knock on the door of a remote homestead. It's quickly apparent the residents are a family of inbred psychopaths, and the unlucky youths suddenly find themselves running for their lives. In hot pursuit is a disfigured, chainsaw-wielding cannibal known as Leatherface. For those of you familiar with the original this re-make or "reimagining" as they call it, the basic background has been change and so have some story elements. For example the teens find themselves at the creppy Hewitt farm for different reasons than the orignial film, in this newer version the hitchhiker (a girl this time) commits suicide in their van by pulling a gun out from between her legs (no, that's right you read it correctly, from between her legs) and offs herself. From then on you can imagine what hapens (or better yet get the movie out and watch it!), this is the first point of difference, the second is the cast we get a different bunch of kids this time around although we do appear to be stuck with the same cliched bunch of fodder, the slightly sluty girl, the "I don't care if he dies" insensitive guy, the sensible geek, the girlfriend and the leader. Other points of difference have to do with the family, it seems like the whole community is in on this canabalism fetish, in the original it was just the imediate family of Leather Face, and finally this re-make rest a lot of it's scare factor on violence and gore, I don't recall seeing any gore in the original, what made that movie so scary was the scenery, atmosphere, use of sound which gave the viewer the feeling of impending doom, that's what struck fear into many viewers. The remake just tries to make you sick by showing you blood and guts and doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. The director also resorts to cheap scares every now and then, which as a horror fan is an insult. Although these shortfalls the film is not as bad as I was expecting, the young fresh cast had a nice chemistry between them and Leather Face looked awesome. The showstopper for me however was R. Lee Ermey's wonderful performace as the crazy Sherriff, I forgot how much of an asshole this guy can be and boy is he a huge asshole in this movie, which makes for some very enjoyable scenes. The look of the film is nice, shot by the same Cinematographer as the original Daniel Pearl, the film in the words of the director looks like puke, yes we have a very vomit-esque colour scheme, but hey it works for the film. They even managed to imporve on some elements from the original, such as the inside of the house, in the humble opinion of this reviewer it looks creepier than in the original, maybe it was the hanging meat in the kitchen? or the animals roaming freely in the house, either way I take my hat off to the art department. And as stated above Leather Face looks awesome, the make-up team have certainly imporved upon the original designs for the face masks. Overall the film had it's moments but felt weak at parts, I certainly don't hate this film, which was what I going in for. It's a passable re-make that doesn't completely suck, which in today's Hollywood is a rare thing indeed.
Video
Presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 this anamorphic transfer is perfect, the print is clean and doesn't have a single hint of edge enhancement. New Line have done a fine job with the transfer and presented the film exaclty how I remmembered seeing it on the big screen.
Audio
Again New Line have given the viewer an impressive selection of soundtracks, you get the option of either a DTS ES 6.1 track, a Dolby Digital EX 5.1 track or a Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track (all in English of course). I listened to two of the three tracks the DD EX 5.1 and the DTS of the two the DTS track was just that little bit better, it's range is certainly better than the DD track. The atmospheric sounds where a lot clearer, the chainsaw felt it had more of an agressive punch to it on the DTS track. Other sounds like the dialogue, effects sounds and music sounded the same on each track I couldn't spot any differences. Which ever track you choose they are both crystal clear and will shake your speakers during some of the action. Kudos New Line you did a fine job here. The film also includes subtitles in both English and Spanish.
Extras
New Line has also done a wonderful job with creating some very cool extras for this DVD, before I go into the extras let me start by saying that if you are going to buy this DVD make sure that you get the 2-disc edition. Only this edition features all of the cool extras the alternative release is a single disc effort with minor extras that are made up of a trailer, some TV spots, a music video and the DVD-ROM content, If you are not fussed about extras this is a slightly cheaper alternative. Now onto the meat of the 2-disc release. The first disc boasts not only one or two but three informative audio commentaries. Each commentary is broken up under three seperate headings. The first commentary is entitled "Production" and features director Marcus Nispei, producer Michael Bay, executive producers Andrew Porm and Brad Fuller and New Line co-chairman Robert Shaye as the title of the commentary suggests the basis of this extra is to give the viewer an insight into the process it took to make this film, from the appeal of the original, attaining the rights, the screenwriting stage in finding the right cast members to fill in the roles. Overall this is a very informative commentary, there are no long pauses and each collaborator has some very interesting things to say about the production. The Second commentary is entitled "Technical" and features the director Marcus Nispel, cinematographer Daniel Pearl, production designer Greg Blair, art director Scott Gallagher, sound editor Trevor Jolly and composer Steve Jabinsky also an informative commentary scrutinizing all the finer technical details of production from the look of the film, the surroundings of the cast, set decoration etc, as well as post-production techniques in editing the film. It's interesting to note that the film originally had bookends with an older Erin (Jessica Beil) recounting the experiance to an investigator (these scenes can be viewed in the deleted scenes section on disc two), another highlight was hearing the stories from the set of the original film by the cinematographer Daniel Pearl and comparing them to his experiance working on this reimagining. Overall a nice track chock full of goodness for those interested in the more technical side of filmmaking. Finally we get the the third and final track entitled "Story" which features director Marcus Nispel, producer Michael Bay, executive producers Andrew Porm and Brad Fuller, actors Jessica Biel, Erica Leerhsen, Eric Balfour, Jonathan Tucker, Mike Vogel and Andrew Bryniarski. This track mainly focuses on the story aspects that this film veered into versus the original, the actors make time to talk about how the original film was so influencial and why they wanted to be apart of this version, the cast and crew also share their stories from the set, of the three commentaries this was the most fun to listen to. Disc two much like the extras on disc one are also segmented into sections, each section is reviewed below: Section 1: Production The first extra in this section is called "Severed Parts: Deleted Scenes" which has its own sub-menu allowing you to view a deleted scenes documentary which intergrates the deleted scenes along with explanations as to why they where cut out of the final print of the film. or you can simply watch the deleted scenes on their own, there are 7 deleted scenes in total they include: - Alternate Opening - Asylum: This scenes shows an older Erin in a mental hostipal talking to investigators about Leather Face (although his name is not spoken it's clear who they are talking about) as she recounts her experiance. - Alternate Suicide: of the hitchhiker girl, the only difference I could spotas the bloody hair clump from the back of her head hitting the floor of the van after she shot herself, otherwise a small cut which was omitted from the film. - Erin's News: a small scene that reveals a cut out sub-plot about Erin being pregnant. - More Erin and Kemper: additional dialogue about their relationship. - Jedidiah's Drawings: a nice scene with the ferral kid showing his drawings to Pepper (Erica Leerhsen), this is an interesting scene that shows us a more human side to this wierd child. - Alternate Morgan Death: This scene is quite bloody it shows in more graphic detail Morgan getting split in half by Leather Face from this crotch up. In the deleted scenes doco, the director explains this was omitted to avoid an NC-17 rating. - Alternate Ending - Asylum: the bookend scene to the alternate opening also featuring an old Erin, where we discover that the the investigators found the wrong killer and send in a swat team to find the real Leather Face. Had this ending been used it would have easily set up a sequel. The next extra under the "production" section are three screen tests by Jessical Biel, Eric Balfour and Erica Leerhson. Nothing too spectacular here, but I'm glad they included them mainly as a curiosity piece and gives you a little insight into casting. Then we get to the 72 minute documentary entitled "Chainsaw Redux: Making a Massacre" this is a great documentary that covers just about every aspect of the filmmaking process, with wonderful behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast, director and producers. We also get two photo galleries, the first entitled "Production Concept Art by Scott Gallagher" consists of 10 production sketches and the second "Leather Face Concept Art by Scott Stoddard" are 14 stills of Leather Face's many different mask concepts created for the production. Section 2: "Ed Gain: The Ghoul of Plainville" This is an insightful and sometimes shocking and creepy 25 minute documentary on the man that insipired the original Texas Chainsaw and countless other films such as Silence of the Lambs and Psycho. The documentary covers the basic history of Ed Gain and his serial murders commited in the 1950's. Section 3: Publicity and Promotion made up of: - Michael Bay Teaser Trailer: in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 sound - Theatrical trailer: in anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 sound - 7 TV spots: with a "Play All" function - "Suffocate" music video by Motogrator: this is a heavy metal piece, suited for those with an aquired taste in the heavy metal genre. we also get bonus trailers for Highwaymen, Willard, The Butterfly Effect and Ripley's Game. It was good of New Line to include these extras and in great quality presentation of each as well. Section 4: DVD-ROM Content I haven't really explored these extras in great detail, but I'll list them here along with a brief description: - Web links to the official Texas Chainsaw website and to New Line's DVD "Hot Spot" - Script-to-Screen Viewer, were you can watch the film alongside the script in either a full screen format or in a smaller screen format. - Storyboard viewer alows you access to the many storyboards created for this film - You can also print out the entire screenplay I've also found one easter egg, if you highlight the New Line logo on the main menu you'll get access to two pages of DVd credits. You also get 8 evidence photographs housed in an envelope, these black & white photos also have an evidence tag on the reverase of each, a nice collectible to include. I must say that after viewing all the extras it did leave me wanting more, a film with such a high production value in terms of it's make-up effects and art design it would have been nice to include a few featurettes highlighting each department, apart from this minor quip New Line has done a great job in providing some great extras.
Packaging
Finally a note on the packaging, this 2-disc set is packaged in a 4-panel vertical digi-pack with a chainsaw motif that fits into a cardboard slip-case. The case also comes with a Leather Face removable metal face plate, which is nice to have but i would have prefered the face plate be part of the cover rather than just some randomly inserted sheet of metal.
Overall
Not as bad I was expecting this to be, the film does have some saving graces. New Line's DVD is a solid effort with amazing video, audio and extras that will keep you glued to your TV for quite some time. If you saw this movie and liked it then this DVD is a great purchase, otherwise rent it before you buy.
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